SCBWI Writer's Day

Thanks to all the crew at Ventura/Santa Barbara SCBWI Writer's Day! Gracious hosts, great esprit de corps. On Saturday I gave a spotlight presentation called "How I Sold My Talking Dinosaur and Other Tales of a Picture Book Author," in which T-Math made his Powerpoint debut.

My favorite part of the conference was listening to the brisk, astute responses of the panel (Suzy Capozzi from Random House, Marilyn Mark from Marshall Cavendish, and Mark von Bargen from MacMillan) to the first pages. For picture books, the right equation was:
fresh characters + colorful writing + action propelling plot = a compelling Page One.